4 Leadership Principles to Bring Out the Best in Others

A strong leader brings out the best in others. How? It’s a matter of having the right perspective. In his article below, Sean Lynch offers four key perspectives that will put you on the right track.

“A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.” – John C. Maxwell

4 Leadership Principles to Bring Out the Best in Others

By Sean Lynch

Do you know people who don’t seem to do their best, or are not engaged at work? Do you blame them, or some stereotype? Maybe it’s not them. Maybe it’s you … or your organization.

Most people don’t show up at work to do the minimum, just get by, or be difficult. Instinctually, we blame others for their lack of motivation or engagement. As a leader, turn your attention inward and examine yourself and your organization before blaming others through the lens of the following leadership principles:

1. Accountability: You may think that you are incentivizing top performance and continuous improvement, but what do you do when the inevitable mistake occurs, or an expectation is missed? Are missed performance expectations opportunities to coach, mentor, and train team members?

2. Credibility: Your team members will be watching everything that you say and everything that you do to determine your credibility. Don’t make a commitment that you do not intend to keep, and keep every commitment you make.

3. Performance: As a leader, you’ve got to be able to get the job done. Yet, often overlooked are the ancillary duties that accompany our primary responsibility such as completing evaluations or filing reports. These mundane tasks are an important way to demonstrate competence, build credibility, and take care of our people.

4. Service-based leadership: For you to be successful, the team must be successful. You should be doing all that you can to make the individuals on your team successful.

Select just one of the four principles above and think about how you can turn it into an action step. What can you do that would help you embody this one principle? Over the next few days, look for ways to do just that. Share with us below which principle you focused on and how you turned it into an action step.

This article was provided courtesy of Lead Star – a premiere leadership development firm. You can learn more about leadership by visiting their website at www.leadstar.us